If your Glide app feels slow, loads inconsistently, or occasionally shows an Offline message, this is often related to a combination of geographic distance, cloud data usage, and app complexity.
This article explains why this happens and what you can do to improve performance.
Why distance from Glide’s servers matters
Glide’s servers are located in the United States. When users access an app from regions far away, such as Australia, Europe, or Asia, every data request must travel a longer physical distance.
This adds network latency to:
Loading screens
Querying cloud data
Saving changes
Recalculating computed columns
While this delay may be small for simple apps, it becomes much more noticeable as data complexity increases.
How cloud data and dependencies impact performance
Apps that rely heavily on Glide Big Tables and computed columns typically make many live requests to Glide’s servers before a screen can fully render.
Performance is most affected when an app includes:
Frequent reads and writes to cloud-hosted data
Many Query, Rollup, and Relation columns
Columns that depend on other computed columns (deep dependency chains)
Each dependency layer adds additional processing and network round trips.
In simple terms:
More cloud queries + more chained calculations = longer load times
Distance from the server amplifies this effect.
There is no fixed “safe limit” for queries or dependencies
Performance depends on many variables, including:
The size of your data
How many columns are queried
How deeply calculations are chained
How often data is recalculated
How frequently users modify cloud data
Because of this, there is no universal number of queries or dependency depth that guarantees good performance.
However, as complexity increases, performance will consistently degrade, especially for users far from the server.
JavaScript columns and live calculations
[Marcel: Not sure I should include this section]
JavaScript columns can also be impacted by network timing, particularly when they:
Reference live data
Depend on cloud queries
Use time-based functions like NOW()
These can trigger recalculations during app load and further increase network requests.
Why you may see an “Offline” message even when your internet works
The Offline banner does not mean your device lost internet access.
It means the app was unable to successfully complete requests to Glide’s servers.
Your browser may still load websites normally while a real-time data request to Glide times out or is briefly interrupted.
The Offline message only displays after repeated request failures:
A request first enters a short recovery period (about 5 seconds)
The app retries automatically
If requests are still failing after this window, the Offline message appears
This helps avoid false alarms from brief network hiccups.
When apps are far from the server and running heavy cloud queries, short latency spikes are more likely to reach this timeout threshold.
How to improve performance and reduce offline interruptions
To improve speed and reliability:
Reduce the number of Query and Rollup columns where possible
Avoid stacking queries on top of other queries
Flatten dependency chains by storing computed results when practical
Limit live calculations that depend on cloud data
Use the Column Dependency Tool to identify and simplify high-depth areas
Even small reductions in complexity can lead to noticeable performance improvements.
The most effective way to improve performance: move live logic into stored results
The biggest performance gains usually come from moving complex logic out of live computed columns and into stored results using workflows.
Instead of recalculating chains of queries every time a screen loads, pre-calculate values when data changes and store them in normal columns.
This:
Reduces network requests
Shortens dependency chains
Makes apps more resilient to latency
A simple mental model
Live calculations = asking the server every time
Stored results = remembering the answer
Apps far from the server benefit massively from “remembering answers.”
Additional optimization strategies
To further improve speed and reliability:
Reduce the number of Query and Rollup columns where possible
Avoid stacking queries on top of other queries
Break long dependency chains into simpler stages
Trigger heavy logic only when data changes instead of on every screen load
Minimize repeated cloud lookups by storing frequently used values
Even small reductions in complexity can lead to noticeable improvements.
Key takeaway
Performance issues for users far from Glide’s servers are usually caused by:
Geographic latency + heavy cloud data usage + deep column dependencies
Moving complex live logic into stored results and simplifying dependency chains is the most effective way to improve both speed and stability.